A Kryptonian, a Martian, and Three Humans Try to Assemble Baby Furnit
by Artemis J. Halk
Summary: "Is it just me or does this seem like the set-up for a joke?" Winn asked as Kara and James moved to grab the broken pieces of the crib. "A Kryptonian, a Martian, and three humans try to assemble baby furniture…" Part of my Hank/Alex collection.


Alex had been quite unable to leave Jeremy at the lab. They needed to keep him for observation. Which she completely understood. It had taken her so long in order to be able to hold one of her babies, and she sure wasn't going to let him die by taking him from the lab before the doctors said that he was ready to be released to the outside world.

But the next morning, Hank convinced her to return to their apartment to assemble all of the baby furniture for little Jeremy.

"We can call Kara to come and help us," Alex said as they got into Hank's car. "Shoot, Kara! We have to tell her about this, too! She's going to be pissed. First she couldn't throw me a bachelorette party, and now a baby shower."

"You didn't know that you needed to have one," Hank said with a slight chuckle. "Tell her to be angry at me."

"I will do that, but we really need to talk about my mom," Alex said carefully.

"I'd rather we didn't, but I also understand why," Hank said a bit sourly.

The relationship between Hank and Eliza was usually pretty frigid. She sometimes could grant him a kind word or two, but once she'd found out that they didn't exactly have a lot of plans for giving her grandchildren, her attitude towards him was pretty frosty.

But she lived in another state, and only came out for the major holidays, so Hank didn't have to deal with her a lot.

However, he did remember something that she'd said the day that he and Alex got married. She'd said that if they did have kids, she'd want to move closer so that she could see them more. And she probably would, since both Alex and Kara lived close together.

He wouldn't put it past Eliza to put her house on the market as soon as Alex told her mother about Jeremy.

"Let's deal with Kara first, and then focus on my mom," Alex said. She knew exactly what her husband's and mother's relationship was like.

* * *

Once they were at their apartment building, Hank took Alex down to the basement, where each unit had a storage area. "I didn't even know that this was down here."

"You don't exactly have a lot of stuff," Hank pointed out.

"This is true. I think you have more things than I do," Alex said. Hank lead her over to the locker for their apartment, and unlocked the door. It was full of boxes, and some of Hank's old furniture from his apartment from before they moved in together. "I'd thought that I'd seen the last of that old sofa."

"I have too many fond memories to want to get rid of it," Hank said with a faint smile. Alex leaned into his side and looked up at him with a matching smile. He leaned down and kissed her tenderly for a second before he pulled away. "Okay, that's the crib, that's the changing table, and that's the rocking chair."

"What's that other big box?" Alex said as she pointed to the fourth box.

"The high chair. We probably won't need that for a while, but we will need these three things," Hank said. "And since they're the biggest, let's move them up now."

"Let's call Kara and have her help move stuff," Alex said as she pulled her phone out.

* * *

An hour later found the three of them on the floor in Hank's and Alex's living room, surrounded by the parts for the crib.

"I don't understand this," Kara exclaimed as she looked over the assembly instructions. "There are literally four pages, but they can't be bothered to explain what is even happening in any of them!"

"I have a PhD in bio-engineering, and even I can't make heads or tails of this," Alex said as she looked at the instruction manual upside down. It made just about as much sense upside down as it did right-side up.

"I think that we're going to have to call in an expert on this," Hank said finally as he got up and went to get his phone.

"Who?" Kara asked with confusion.

"An engineer. I hate to say this, but we need Winn."

* * *

Another hour later, Winn, James, Alex, Kara, and Hank stepped back to admire their handiwork.

"It seems… wobbly," Alex said with concern.

"It seems okay to me," Winn said, but seemed unsure of his own words.

"You try saying that when it's your own kid on the line here, Schott," Hank said dangerously.

James reached out and gave the crib a tentative shove. It wobbled drastically before the bottom and one side fell off.

"Is it just me or does this seem like the set-up for a joke?" Winn asked as Kara and James moved to grab the broken pieces of the crib. "A Kryptonian, a Martian, and three humans try to assemble baby furniture…" Then he attempted to mimic the drum sound for jokes with his mouth, and made the drumming motions with his hand.

"Just shut up and try to help us in a way that doesn't involve duck-tape or putting my child into a wobbly deathtrap," Hank growled at him as he shoved the broken side at Winn.

* * *

It was late by the time that they'd managed to correctly put together all three pieces of furniture. Alex and Hank ordered Chinese food to thank the others for their help.

"Here's to Jeremy!" James said as he raised his beer up into the air. "He has the best family that one could ever hope for."

"Thank you, James," Alex said. "And thanks for your help today, guys."

"Anytime, Alex," Kara said with a huge smile on her face. "So, when will we be able to meet my nephew?"

"Actually…" Alex said as she looked at her watch. "I want to get back to him now. I didn't intend to leave him all day today, but this took a lot longer than any of us had anticipated. You can come with if you'd like."

"I'll stay here tonight," Hank said. "I can't keep sleeping on that cot. My back hurts again just thinking of it."

"Old man," Alex teased. She leaned over and kissed him before she got up and started to put things into her purse.

The two sisters left the apartment, and Kara gave Alex a pleading look when they got onto the elevator. "Don't give me that look," Alex said blankly as she checked the messages on her phone.

"Come on, Alex. You know what I'm going to say," Kara said with some annoyance.

"It's all Hank's fault that you couldn't throw me a baby shower," Alex said absently as she sent a text to one of her lab techs.

"What? No, it's not that! It's about mom!"

Alex finally looked up from her phone and over to her foster-sister just as the elevator came to a stop. They got off, left the building, and got into Alex's car. "Yes, I know. I'm going to call her in the morning. Hank… Well, you know the kind of relationship that he has with her. But still. Kara, there's a lot of stuff that neither of us are telling you right now. Stuff that is too horrifying, to intimate to tell anybody else."

"Alex, what did you do?" Kara asked, her eyes wide with fright.

"None of that matters right now. But just know this one thing: the process of making Jeremy wasn't as easy as the scientists combining Hank's and my DNA in a lab," Alex said with venom in her voice. Kara gave her sister a sad look, and Alex heaved a heavy sigh. "I'd rather that mom not know about any of that. As far as she knows, everything went normally. Hank and I decided to have a baby, but since I didn't want to carry, we created him in a lab, like all scientists do these days."

"But… why are you telling me all of this?" Kara asked with confusion.

"Because it's going to seem suspicious if I tell mom about Jeremy and I never told her that we were going to have a baby. Furthermore… Hank and I haven't exactly discussed this, but the subject of why our baby is green and has glowing, red eyes is probably going to come up with her sooner or later. I think that I'm going to tell her about Hank as soon as she gets here."

"Well, she took me in, so I don't think that she's going to raise too much of a fuss with Hank. Especially not when she sees Jeremy," Kara pointed out.

"I sure hope not."

Alex had just pulled into the parking lot of the DEO when Kara threw back her head and burst out laughing.

"What?"

"A Kryptonian, a Martian, and three humans tried to assemble baby furniture!" Kara giggled. "Winn was right: it does sound like the start of a bad joke!"

* * *

This has not been proof-read, so if you spotted an errors, please let me know!

Also, if you enjoyed this, please leave a review!


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